Talkin' Grazing to Regenerate Soils with Dick Richardson

In this Talkin After Hours Episode Jo & Kate chat to Fred Provenza, Professor Emeritus, Dept. Wildland Resources, Utah State University. 

For the past 30 years, Fred and his team have produced ground-breaking research that has laid the foundation for what is now known as behavior-based management of livestock, wildlife and landscapes. This research led to the creation in 2001 of a consortium of scientists and land managers from five continents  called BEHAVE (Behavioral Education for Human, Animal, Vegetation and Ecosystem management). Fred has authored 3 books Foraging Behavior: Managing to Survive in a World of Change, The Science of Shepherding: Tapping the Wisdom of French Herder, and most recently published a book on his research titled Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us about Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom.

Our conversation delves into this fascinating research with a particular focus on the impact of plant diversity on livestock health.

In this months podcast Jo & Kate chat with Mark Tupman from Productive Ecology on a topic that is absolutely fundamental to agriculture – that of soil function & fertility.

In our conversation we delve into what is actually meant by soil function, why and how it is so critical to soil fertility, and what are the most effective strategies we can implement to build soil fertility.

In this episode of Talkin’ After Hours Jo & Kate chat to Joel Williams on the hot topic of Nitrogen – how it works in the nutrient cycle and how can we best optimise its use – particularly in grazing systems.

In this months podcast we chat to agroecologist & partner in rural change management company Soil Land Food, David Hardwick on the hot topic of making your own biofertilisers .David learned the skills of making bugs and brews from the masters at Mas humas and has been passing on that information ever since. In the podcast David shares tips, tricks & recipes to make starter cultures, inoculants, bioferments and biofertilisers. 

Feral Pigs are a major pest across a Australia and are in fact wreaking havoc right here in our backyard in the Lower Blackwood Catchment. Here at the LCDC we’ve been working with the Lower Blackwood Vertebrate Pest Management group for a number of years on controlling the local pig population and are coming into our third year of our State NRM funded project ‘Feral Pig Focus – Protecting the Scott Coastal Plain’.

In this month's Talkin' Podcast we chat to Dr Heather Channon, the National Feral Pig Management Coordinator for the National Feral Pig Action Plan about the plan and how projects like ours fit in with her work on a National Scale.

This podcast is supported by the Western Australian Government's State NRM Program.

In this episode Jo & Kate talk to Agroecologist Mark Tupman on all things composting for farms - what the options are, how to make them, and how to best utilise the compost on your farm.

This podcast is supported though funding from Soil Wise. Soil Wise is funded by the National Landcare Program Smart Farms Small Grants – an Australian Government initiative. It is supported by Healthy Estuaries WA – a State Government program.

In this Talkin’ After Hours Podcast Jo & Kate chat once again to Victorian cropper, seed grower & beef farmer Grant Sims.

Grant has driven farm health and productivity gains on his farm through adhering to a set of principles that have included the use of multi species cover crops, eliminating the use of 'icides' and largely replacing high input synthetic fertilisers with foliar fed biofertilisers.

This is our second podcast with Grant, last time we focused on multispecies cover cropping, this time around we decided to pick his brains on his other passion – and that is driving plant health through nutrition. Listen in, we know you'll enjoy it!

This podcast is supported though funding from Soil Wise. Soil Wise is funded by the National Landcare Program Smart Farms Small Grants – an Australian Government initiative. It is supported by Healthy Estuaries WA – a State Government program.

In this Talkin' podcast Jo & Kate chat to Jade Killoran, Victorian independent multispecies cover crop advisor, researcher and founder of Healthy Farming Systems. 

Although the Victorian climate is slightly different to ours, it is similar enough that so much of what Jade has researched is very applicable in our environment. In this episode we  explore with Jade her research and trial findings and what strategies land managers can use to get diverse & perennial plants established in their annual grazing systems.

This podcast is delivered in partnership with the Lower South West Growers Group and is supported though funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund, the Augusta Margaret River Shire Environmental Management Fund, and Soil Wise. Soil Wise is funded by the National Landcare Program Smart Farms Small Grants – an Australian Government initiative. It is supported by Healthy Estuaries WA – a State Government program.

In this podcast episode Jo & Kate talk with South West farmer Blythe Calnan about her regenerative journey with her partner Greg Hooper - their motivations, the challenges and the opportunities in running 'Runnymede', a commercial regenerative farm.

This podcast is supported by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development as part of a collaboration bringing Dr Christine Jones to Western Australia in February 2023.

In this episode Jo & Kate talk with South West equine agronomist Belinda Taylor on horses, pastures & soil - including how to get more diversity into equine systems and what that means for management of your horse or horses. 

This podcast is supported by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development as part of a collaboration bringing Dr Christine Jones to Western Australia in February 2023.